As a martial arts student and teacher since 1965, Loren has trained hundreds of students, competed in dozens of tournaments, and trained with many true martial arts masters.

Loren was never a martial arts movie actor or a tournament champion. Instead, he applied his skill set over and over in the extraordinarily mean streets of Saigon, Vietnam as an Army MP and as a police officer in a large city.

He was involved in shootings, riots, and more fights than he could ever count. He worked as a bodyguard for presidents, vice presidents, an assortment of political candidates, a high-profile religious figure, an infamous criminal, and others. The path he traveled in the military and law enforcement required him to call upon his martial arts abilities over and over.

Those experiences—he considers them opportunities— taught him much about violence, the martial arts, and the human condition.